castrate

Likely from an unattested sense of Middle English castrat (“(adjective) castrated; (noun) a castrated animal”), substantivized borrowing of Latin castrātus, perfect passive participle of castrō (“to prune, amputate, castrate”), see -ate (noun-forming suffix)).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kæsˈtɹeɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkæs.tɹeɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

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castrate (plural castrates)

1. A castrated man; a eunuch.
   • 1990, Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae:

     The castrate voice had a strange power not duplicated by soprano or countertenor.

Borrowed from Latin castrātus, perfect passive participle of Latin castrō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Displaced native geld in its broader sense.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkæs.tɹeɪt/, /kæsˈtɹeɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkæs.tɹeɪt/
• Rhymes: -eɪt

castrate (third-person singular simple present castrates, present participle castrating, simple past and past participle castrated)

1. (transitive) To remove the testicles of a person or animal.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 129:

     If the priests of Diana of Ephesus castrated themselves and offered their genitals on the altar, it was because the phallus was the symbol of the dying body.

2. (transitive, uncommon) To remove the ovaries and/or uterus of an animal.
3. (transitive, figurative) To take something from; to render imperfect or ineffectual.

• geld (generally used only for animals, especially horses)
• spay f / neuter (generally used only for animals, especially pets)
• sterilize (used for all species and for both genders)

• emasculate

• rascetta, tea carts, teacarts, tear-cats

castrate

1. inflection of castrare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

castrate f pl

1. feminine plural of castrato

• crestata, scartate, scattare, scatterà, trescata

castrāte

1. vocative singular of castrātus

castrate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of castrar combined with te